Marra Farm plants seeds for South Park community

Najah Nuth, 10, a fourth-grader at Concord Elementary in the South Park area, takes a bite out of an organic leek grown at Marra Farm.

Najah Nuth, 10, a fourth-grader at Concord Elementary in the South Park area, takes a bite out of an organic leek grown at Marra Farm.

Photo: Scott Eklund/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Photo: Scott Eklund/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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Najah Nuth, 10, a fourth-grader at Concord Elementary in the South Park area, takes a bite out of an organic leek grown at Marra Farm.

Najah Nuth, 10, a fourth-grader at Concord Elementary in the South Park area, takes a bite out of an organic leek grown at Marra Farm.

Photo: Scott Eklund/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Marra Farm plants seeds for South Park community

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If it weren't for the dogs, there'd be no fences dividing the plots at South Park's historic Marra Farm.

The barriers serve a practical purpose in keeping munching mutts out of the harvest, but the non-profit Marra Farm Coalition doesn't want anything else getting in the way of a united effort to connect with neighbors, provide fresh organic produce and teach their children where food comes from.

"We've got teens, community gardeners, immigrants and kids, but we're all Marra Farm," Harper said. "We're all helping to create a stronger community. This mission is evolving bigger than any one organization."

Bordered by freeways and industrial complexes, South Park lacks the retail and culinary venues that help build cohesion in other Seattle communities. While some neighborhoods such as Queen Anne have as many as three grocery stores within a few blocks, South Park residents have to walk more than a mile -- crossing state Route 99 -- for basic supplies.

"In a lot of ways it's a bit of an oasis, providing fresh organic produce in a neighborhood where there isn't any," said Minh Chao Le, the garden coordinator for Seattle Youth Garden Works, which employs homeless and at-risk youths to cultivate and sell produce at the Columbia City Farmers Market.

She grew up nearby and, like many residents, didn't know about the farm until recently.

One of two historically preserved farms left in Seattle -- Picardo Farm P-Patch is the other -- it belonged to the Marra family from the early 1900s to 1980. Shortly after that, King County bought the property. It languished as a dumping ground until about 1997, when John Beal -- a local environmentalist who restored Hamm Creek to life more than 25 years ago -- went to work on it, clearing the farm of 12.5 tons of garbage, by his estimation.

Beal helped introduce to the farm 40 farmers who had emigrated from Ethiopia and teamed them with other growers to teach them organic methods. They fed their families with the produce, and sold the rest at Pike Place Market.

"I had a vision and a goal," Beal said. "It's like that story in the Bible. If you teach them how to fish, they're not hungry. I have the same philosophy with farming."

In 1998, the Marra Farm Coalition took responsibility for maintaining the land.

Marra Farm coordinator Sue McGann -- Lettuce Link's only paid on-site staff member -- spends much of her time managing the volunteers who help pull weeds, turn beds, paint signs, harvest crops and plant new ones.

Last year, volunteers spent more than 5,000 hours working on the farm, Harper said.

"This is my dream job, because I get to grow food and work with young people and show them how important agriculture is," said McGann, a lifelong gardener who was a volunteer at the farm before joining the staff a year and a half ago.

Already she's seen inroads of interest from the community. For nearby employees on their lunch break, it is a verdant respite. For kids, it's a safe place to burn off energy. For parents, the P-patch provides food for families or fulfills a recreational hobby. For local companies and schools, it's a destination for service projects.

"It's been a long road, and it's finally starting to pay off," Harper said.

The farm is a new addition to the city parks program, and recent grants in excess of $34,000 are going toward making it more community-friendly: vegetable wash stations, picnic tables, a movable storage shed, community workshops and bilingual outreach workers.

Although resources are limited, Harper and the other coordinators hope the outreach gives them answers to what the community wants from the farm, so long as it remains open space in accordance with its agreement with the city. The farm has an additional four acres of undeveloped space, unsuitable for raising crops.

For a few years, programs with Concord Elementary School have brought South Park's children to the farm. Every Tuesday, 19 of Marcia Ventura's third- and fourth-graders walk down the street and onto the farm, high-fiving the grad school students who've become their buddies this semester.

Nicknamed "Team Thesis," the students help teach nutrition facts and the basics of architecture -- through the construction of a storage shed/office -- to their younger counterparts.

The kids spend their hour with the grad students and tending to their individual plots in the Kids' Garden.

"I'm kinda jealous. Everyone else's is growing bigger than mine," lamented Jennifer Ngeth, 9, a third-grader at Concord who scrunched up her face as she looked at her plot of beets, lettuce and green onions.

Harper leaned over and inspected her efforts.

"They're not going to grow," Harper told her. "See how they're a bunch? If we don't pull them out, they're not gonna grow. It's almost like we have to be ruthless to get them to grow."

Jennifer nodded as she listened to Harper, her disappointment turning to curiosity as Harper encouraged her to taste the beet greens.

She smiled as she munched. "All mine!"

"We teach them how to grow," McGann said. "Sometimes they have to do it wrong to get it right."

A graduate student in the University of Washington's Center for Public Health and Nutrition recently conducted research that showed the impact of children gardening.

"It really does expand the number of fruits and vegetables that they'll eat," said Donna Johnson, associate director of the department. "Just to be involved in gardening and harvesting expands their horizons in terms of what will go in their mouths."